Archives for May 2016

Op eds can be a great way to promote your book and research, but a well-written op ed piece capable of catching the attention of a busy editor is a bit of an art form. How often should you pitch? What about timing? If the piece is accepted, how do you handle the edits? It’s a bit overwhelming, but don’t fret! If you’re interested in showing off your thought leadership in an op ed style piece, there are some specific steps you can follow. In a recent blog post for The American Philosophical Association, former editor at Al Jazeera America, David V. Johnson, offers ten helpful tips that will get you on the right track. Where to start? First and foremost, find your voice:

Consider the best prose stylists in philosophy. One thing they have in common is a unique voice. Their essays never read as cold, clinical, or canned. Rather, they read as if the author is standing in the room with you, making his or her points, and it could be no one else but that person saying it that way.

The same holds for public writing. The best writers cultivate a unique voice that makes their arguments come alive. It will take time to find your voice, but always be striving to realize it.

You can read about the other rules of thumb here. For additional advice on writing a successful op ed, check out this excellent piece, “Op ed and you” from The New York Times, and these guidelines from The Guardian as well.

Charismatic, admired, and endlessly mysterious, fireflies have long been a source of intrigue. Sara Lewis has spent nearly thirty years examining the lives, surprising habits, and habitats of these beloved and frequently romanticized insects. As Memorial Day weekend winds down and fireflies start to make their debut in summer skies, take a peek inside the new book, Silent Sparks: The Wondrous World of Fireflies.

“Male mate competition has led to the evolution of many extraordinary mating behaviors. For one thing, males often get a jump-start on metamorphosis, and turn into adults sooner than their corresponding females. This pattern of early male emergence is known as protandry, and it’s common among butterflies, mayflies, mosquitos, and fireflies. Male competition even compels some insect males to take child brides … [M]ales will jealously stand guard over an immature female, chasing off rival males and waiting patiently until she becomes sexually mature … Some male fireflies … use this child-bride tactic, guarding immature females and then mating when the female crawls out.” p. 38

For centuries, the beauty of fireflies has evoked wonder and delight. Yet for most of us, fireflies remain shrouded in mystery: How do fireflies make their light? What are they saying with their flashing? And what do fireflies look for in a mate? In Silent Sparks, noted biologist and firefly expert Sara Lewis dives into the fascinating world of fireflies and reveals the most up-to-date discoveries about these beloved insects. From the meadows of New England and the hills of the Great Smoky Mountains, to the rivers of Japan and mangrove forests of Malaysia, this beautifully illustrated and accessible book uncovers the remarkable, dramatic stories of birth, courtship, romance, sex, deceit, poison, and death among fireflies.

The nearly two thousand species of fireflies worldwide have evolved in different ways—and while most mate through the aerial language of blinking lights, not all do. Lewis introduces us to fireflies that don’t light up at all, relying on wind-borne perfumes to find mates, and we encounter glow-worm fireflies, whose plump, wingless females never fly. We go behind the scenes to meet inquisitive scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding fireflies, and we learn about various modern threats including light pollution and habitat destruction. In the last section of the book, Lewis provides a field guide for North American fireflies, enabling us to identify them in our own backyards and neighborhoods. This concise, handy guide includes distinguishing features, habits, and range maps for the most commonly encountered fireflies, as well as a gear list.

A passionate exploration of one of the world’s most charismatic and admired insects, Silent Sparks will inspire us to reconnect with the natural world.

Not all topics that are part of today’s elementary mathematics were always considered as such, and great mathematical advances and discoveries had to occur in order for certain subjects to become “elementary.” Elements of Mathematics: From Euclid to Gödel, by John Stillwell gives readers, from high school students to professional mathematicians, the highlights of elementary mathematics and glimpses of the parts of math beyond its boundaries.

You’ve been writing math books for a long time now. What do you think is special about this one?

JS: In some ways it is a synthesis of ideas that occur fleetingly in some of my previous books: the interplay between numbers, geometry, algebra, infinity, and logic. In all my books I try to show the interaction between different fields of mathematics, but this is one more unified than any of the others. It covers some fields I have not covered before, such as probability, but also makes many connections I have not made before. I would say that it is also more reflective and philosophical—it really sums up all my experience in mathematics.

Who do you expect will enjoy reading this book?

JS: Well I hope my previous readers will still be interested! But for anyone who has not read my previous work, this might be the best place to start. It should suit anyone who is broadly interested in math, from high school to professional level. For the high school students, the book is a guide to the math they will meet in the future—they may understand only parts of it, but I think it will plant seeds for their future mathematical development. For the professors—I believe there will be many parts that are new and enlightening, judging from the number of times I have often heard “I never knew that!” when speaking on parts of the book to academic audiences.

Does the “Elements” in the title indicate that this book is elementary?

JS: I have tried to make it as simple as possible but, as Einstein is supposed to have said, “not simpler”. So, even though it is mainly about elementary mathematics it is not entirely elementary. It can’t be, because I also want to describe the limits of elementary mathematics—where and why mathematics becomes difficult. To get a realistic appreciation of math, it helps to know that some difficulties are unavoidable. Of course, for mathematicians, the difficulty of math is a big attraction.

What is novel about your approach?

JS: It tries to say something precise and rigorous about the boundaries of elementary math. There is now a field called “reverse mathematics” which aims to find exactly the right axioms to prove important theorems. For example, it has been known for a long time—possibly since Euclid—that the parallel axiom is the “right” axiom to prove the Pythagorean theorem. Much more recently, reverse mathematics has found that certain assumptions about infinity are the right axioms to prove basic theorems of analysis. This research, which has only appeared in specialist publications until now, helps explain why infinity appears so often at the boundaries of elementary math.

Does your book have real world applications?

JS: Someone always asks that question. I would say that if even one person understands mathematics better because of my book, then that is a net benefit to the world. The modern world runs on mathematics, so understanding math is necessary for anyone who wants to understand the world.

Could the steep rise in the share of income gains falling into the hands of the top one percent of Americans since the 1970s have been stopped, and will the rise stop in the near future? A newly revealed history of American growth and inequality suggests the answer is yes to both questions.* What is exceptional about recent American experience is that inequality has risen faster than in other rich countries. Furthermore, it has happened twice in our history – before the Civil War, and again since the 1970s. Without some exogenous crisis like revolution, war, and great depressions, does America have the political will to stop the widening of income gaps between the very rich and the rest?

How hard would it be to stop, or even reverse, the trend? The economics is easy. The politics may be harder. However, to make the policies politically acceptable, just follow a simple equality-growth rule: Make life chances more equal in a pro-growth manner. Prioritize those economic policies that have been shown to equalize people’s opportunities without doing any damage to the growth of our average incomes.

$100 bills lying on the sidewalk

Finding such win-win policies is easy. To see why it’s so easy, just remind yourself: Has our political system seized all the chances to make us richer and more equal at the same time? Of course not. Throughout American history politicians have failed to cash in on equitable growth opportunities, even though they are all around us like so many $100 bills left lying on the sidewalk.

Four easy win-win choices stand out when we compare our experience with that of other countries – and yes, the United States can learn positive lessons from other countries.

Early and basic education for all. The United States has slipped down the rankings in its delivery of early education since the 1960s. At the primary and secondary levels, other countries have caught up with us in years of school completed, and we rank about 27th among all tested countries in the quality of the math, science, and reading skills that students actually learn by age 15.

We are also below the OECD average in the enrollment of three- and four-year olds in early education-plus-care institutions, mainly because we are also below average in our commitment to both public and private funds in pre-primary education. A growing body of evidence shows high returns to early education. Providing it to all serves both equality and growth.

Investing in the careers of young parents with newborns. Our country lags behind all other developed countries in public support for parental work leave. We are failing to invest in both child development and mothers’ career continuity. All of society gains from the better nurturing of our children and the extra career continuity of their mothers, and all of society should help pay for parental leave, not shoving the whole burden onto the young parents or their employers. Other countries figured this out long ago.

Equal opportunity and the inheritance tax. We should return to the higher federal tax rates on top inheritances that we had in the past. This would force rich children receiving bequests to work harder, make Americans more equal, and, by leveling the playing field for new generations a bit, even promote economic growth. A return to a policy which dominated the twentieth century would deliver on the American claim that “in our country, individuals make their own way, with their own hard work and abilities.” To honor that claim, we should make sure that the top economic slots are not reserved for those born very rich. We have done it before. Our top rate of inheritance taxation was 77 percent from 1942 to 1977, years when American incomes grew at the fastest rate this country has ever attained. We haven’t achieved that growth performance since the policy was changed in the 1970s.

Taxing high inheritances is not anti-growth. Instead, it promotes productive work by those who would have inherited the top fortunes. Statistical studies have demonstrated the strength of the “Carnegie effect”. Carnegie was right: passing on huge inheritances undermines the heirs’ work incentives. We also need to stress that bigger inheritance taxes do not take income away from any living rich citizen who has earned it.

Riding herd on the financial sector. Since our Independence, the United States has been above average in its history of financial meltdowns. One could even say that America has been “exceptional” in that regard. Frequent bubbles, booms, and crashes have done great damage to our growth and our equality. The danger of future meltdowns remains, because the Dodd-Frank reforms of 2010 are weaker than the tougher regulatory reforms of the 1930s, which served us so well until the ill-advised de-regulation of the 1980s. More regulatory vigilance, government liquidation authority, and capital requirements are needed to prevent financial breakdowns that tax the non-rich to bail out the rich, and make the poor also pay by losing their jobs.

History is also clear on the inequality connection. When the financial sector was closely regulated in response to the Great Depression disaster, the incomes of the rich in the financial sector fell to more moderate levels. After de-regulation in the 1980s, incomes of the rich in the financial sector soared.

Picking up the easy money takes time – and votes

Implementing just these four win-win policies may or may not be enough to stop any trend toward more inequality, or to raise growth rates from their now-modest levels. We will have to push against a strong headwind coming from competition with poorer countries. Lower-skill jobs in this country will continue to suffer from the competition produced by the long-overdue catching up rise in Asian economies since the 1970s, and from Africa in the future. This new global competition is to be welcomed. There is no reason to wish that poor countries remain hobbled by the bad institutions that have impoverished them for so long. Yet the rising competition challenges the United States to continue to upgrade its own skills to keep ahead. All the more reason to upgrade our human capital.

It will take some time to do these things. Politicians and voters hate to wait for good results that are more than two years away. And such policies may face opposition from those who would not directly gain from such win-win policies.

Still, our democracy can achieve reforms that promote both growth and equality. We’ve done it before. We can do it again. That’s what elections are for.

Peter H. Lindert is Distinguished Professor of Economics at the University of California, Davis. His books include Growing Public: Social Spending and Economic Growth since the Eighteenth Century. He lives in Davis, California.

Jeffrey G. Williamson is the Laird Bell Professor of Economics, emeritus, at Harvard University. His books include Trade and Poverty: When the Third World Fell Behind. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin. Both are research associates at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In Following the Wild Bees, Thomas Seeley provides a handy how-to guide on the ancient practice of bee hunting. Bee hunting involves luring bees to a honeycomb filled with homemade sugar syrup and then, once they’ve had their fill, tracking them as they fly off to their hive home. Finding the beehive is the ultimate goal. Along the way, the bee hunter can appreciate natural beauty while learning about the unique behavior of the cognitively advanced honeybee.

To bee hunt successfully, there are a few tools that are must-haves, and a few that will make life easier as you track bees through their natural habitats. Never fear, though! Bee hunting is a relatively inexpensive sport, and all of the items can fit comfortably inside a backpack.

The most important tool is the bee box. This is a small wooden box (5.5 inches long, 3.5 inches wide, and 3 inches high) with two compartments that enables the bee hunter to capture bees and lure them to the store of sugar syrup. You will also need an opaque cloth to cover the bee box once there are bees inside to help them discover the bait.

For bait you will need two small squares of empty comb that will fit inside one of the compartments of the bee box. These can be obtained from a beekeeper. Next, you will need a jar of sugar syrup. This sugar is easily made by mixing 1.5 cups of pure, white cane sugar with enough boiling water to make two cups of syrup. To finish, add 1 drop of anise extract to make the bait irresistible to the bees. To transfer the sugar syrup to the comb, use a small dropper.

Once you have trapped the bees in your bee box, helped them to discover the bait, and then set them free to offload the “nectar” in their hive, you will need to make the combs as conspicuous as possible for when they return, hopefully with some bee friends. You will need a jar lid, scented with a few drops of anise extract, and a small piece of 8-mesh hardware cloth (easily obtained at a hardware store) that will sit on top of the jar lid. You then place the comb on top of the hardware cloth in the open air and wait for your bees to return.

In order to identify individual bees, you will need a set of paint pens. You should also have a watch with a second hand, a notebook, and a magnetic compass to take accurate notes on the movements of your bees.

Finally, you will need a backpack or toolbox to carry all of your items as you track the bees to their hidden home. You might want to bring a folding chair, a stand for the bee box, a roll of vinyl flagging to mark your path through the woods, and a topographic map of the area. With these items you will be well on your way to engaging in the sport of bee hunting.

While the tools will help, there are important skills that you will also need to conduct a bee hunt. For a complete guide on how to become a master bee hunter, pick up a copy of Thomas Seeley’s Following the Wild Bees. In the meantime, check out our slideshow of beautiful full color images from the book.

“Many poisonous or distasteful animals use bright coloration—often yellow, orange, red, and black—to warn off potential predators…. But firefly larvae are active mainly at night or underground, where such bright colors would be futile. A light in the darkness, on the other hand, would be quite noticeable. We also know that larval fireflies taste terrible…. So ample evidence suggests that fireflies’ bioluminescence first evolved to help baby fireflies ward of predators: like a neon warning sign, it blazed out “I’m toxic—stay away!” Millions of years would elapse before these larval lights got co-opted to become a courtship signal for adult fireflies.” p. 22

For centuries, the beauty of fireflies has evoked wonder and delight. Yet for most of us, fireflies remain shrouded in mystery: How do fireflies make their light? What are they saying with their flashing? And what do fireflies look for in a mate? In Silent Sparks, noted biologist and firefly expert Sara Lewis dives into the fascinating world of fireflies and reveals the most up-to-date discoveries about these beloved insects. From the meadows of New England and the hills of the Great Smoky Mountains, to the rivers of Japan and mangrove forests of Malaysia, this beautifully illustrated and accessible book uncovers the remarkable, dramatic stories of birth, courtship, romance, sex, deceit, poison, and death among fireflies.

The nearly two thousand species of fireflies worldwide have evolved in different ways—and while most mate through the aerial language of blinking lights, not all do. Lewis introduces us to fireflies that don’t light up at all, relying on wind-borne perfumes to find mates, and we encounter glow-worm fireflies, whose plump, wingless females never fly. We go behind the scenes to meet inquisitive scientists who have dedicated their lives to understanding fireflies, and we learn about various modern threats including light pollution and habitat destruction. In the last section of the book, Lewis provides a field guide for North American fireflies, enabling us to identify them in our own backyards and neighborhoods. This concise, handy guide includes distinguishing features, habits, and range maps for the most commonly encountered fireflies, as well as a gear list.

A passionate exploration of one of the world’s most charismatic and admired insects, Silent Sparks will inspire us to reconnect with the natural world.

For more information, visit Sara Lewis’s website! To check out some cool firefly videos, find her on Vimeo.

This essay appears simultaneously in Aeon Magazine and is republished with permission in our Election 2016 series

Citizens of the United States are quite taken with the vocabulary of liberal democracy, with words such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, which conjure key democratic values and distance the nation from the Old World taint of oligarchy and aristocracy. It is much less clear, however, that Americans are guided by democratic ideals. Or that ideology and propaganda play a crucial role in concealing the large gap between rhetoric and reality.

In truth, the Old World systems have proved extremely difficult to shrug off. In their 2014 paper, Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page argue that, as in an oligarchy, ordinary US citizens have no ‘substantial power over policy decisions [and] little or no independent influence on policy at all’.

Moreover, the US regularly subscribes to a form of managerial aristocracy. In Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder successfully replaced the mayors and city councils of several cities with ‘emergency managers’ supposedly able to negotiate financial emergencies better than elected officials. In the current presidential race, Hillary Clinton advertises her managerial expertise via the language of policy, while Donald Trump parades his via the language of business. Neither language is democratic. Neither invites self-governance.

Why is there no outcry about these oligarchical and aristocratic methods? Is it because plutocrats have power over the mechanisms of representation and repression? Is it, in short, about power? In my view, power can’t explain why voters are so enthusiastically voting for the very people who promise the least democratic outcomes. Nor are Americans knowingly rejecting democratic ideals. Instead, I see an anti-democratic ideology at work, inverting the meaning of democratic vocabulary and transforming it into propaganda.

Consider the example of mass incarceration in the US. Black Americans make up around 13 per cent of the population, but around 40 per cent of country’s ballooning prison population. Even if we assume, falsely, that black American crime rates justify this disparity, why is the state so punitive? Shouldn’t citizens instead be motivated to address the underlying socio-economic conditions that lead to such dramatic differences in behaviour between equals?

In The New Jim Crow (2010), Michelle Alexander argues that a national rhetoric of law and order has long justified mass incarceration. President Richard Nixon used it to crack down on black Americans under the cover of an epidemic of heroin use; this continued in the 1980s, as a merciless ‘war on drugs’ whose victims were all too often black men. In the US, the ideology of anti-black racism takes the view that blacks are violent and lazy, thereby masking the misapplication of the ideals of law and order.

Compare the ‘war on drugs’ to the current heroin crisis among middle-class white Americans, which has led to a national discussion of the socio-economic distress facing this class. Law and order doesn’t come into it. ‘The new face of heroin’ is new because, unlike the old face, it calls out for an empathetic response, rather than a punitive one. Now that heroin is ravaging white communities not black ones, the language of law and order (deemed appropriate to keep blacks in their place) has been retired. More significant still is that while the ideals of law and order preclude their unequal application, the propaganda of law and order does not: Americans were thus prevented from seeing the disguised gradient of law and order by racist ideology.

But what is the flawed ideology masking the misapplication of democratic ideals? Let’s bring it out by exploring the most cherished US democratic ideal, the ideal of freedom – popularly embodied in attacks on ‘big government’. Voters are repeatedly told that ‘big government’ is the primary source of coercion that limits freedom, which it certainly sometimes does, as the Patriot Act reminds us. But corporations also limit civic freedom in significant ways.

For example, corporations are leading direct attacks on the freedom to collectively bargain. Via outsourcing, free trade agreements allow corporations to move jobs to countries where labour is cheap; meanwhile, as a result of pressure from the conservative non-profit Citizens United, corporations can fund political candidates, thereby increasing corporate control of government. The weaker a government is, the more power corporations have over it. Across the political spectrum, there is anger that government is too influenced by industry lobbyists.

Voters concerned about government – as opposed to corporate – constraints on freedom are under the grip of what I will call a free market ideology. According to that ideology, the world of capital is by its nature free. All other substantial freedoms, including political freedom and personal freedom, are made possible by the freedom of markets.

Why do citizens who cherish freedom as an ideal vote to constrain their own freedoms by increasing the power of corporations? It’s because free market ideology masks the ways in which corporations deploy undemocratic modes of coercion. When a corporation bans employees from expressing, outside of work, opinions it disapproves of, this is seen as a legitimate protection of its economic interests. If workers have to sign non-disclosure contracts that silence them after they are employed elsewhere, it’s accepted as the cost of doing business.

The contradictions here are telling. If our most basic freedoms are self-expression and choiceful action, then corporations frequently limit our most basic freedoms. In liberal democratic theory, it is government that is regarded as the protector of such rights. But it’s precisely because government is attacked in the name of freedom that corporations have vastly greater power to constrain and shape it.

Free market ideology uses democratic vocabulary as propaganda, obscuring a non-democratic reality. Take education. In a liberal democracy, education equips citizens with the tools and confidence to weigh in on policy decisions and play a role in their own self-governance. Hence, democratic education is at the very centre of democratic political philosophy, as the philosophies of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, W E B Du Bois, John Dewey and Elizabeth Cady Stanton attest. But the US rhetoric surrounding education is explicitly anti-democratic. Citizens prefer ‘efficient’ education systems that train children to perform vocational tasks, rather than education that fosters community, autonomy and civic participation.

The rhetoric politicians use when running for office is usually explicitly anti-democratic. Managerial culture is paradigmatically undemocratic: a CEO is like a feudal lord. But if markets are zones of freedom, then CEOs ought to be its representatives. Free market ideology also explains why, when politicians with great wealth run for office, voters are not put off by the threat of oligarchy: wealth is acquired in markets – which are the source of freedom. Finally, free market ideology explains why voters so easily give up their right to hold institutions accountable to experts who promise ‘efficiency’. Efficiency is the ideal of business, and business is the engine of the market – again the source of freedom.

Free market ideology has perverted democratic vocabulary, transforming it into propaganda that, in turn, obscures an anti-democratic reality. Yet there’s hope that voters have wised up to this and begun to challenge party elites. Such moments of awareness feel dangerous but offer great opportunities. Voters are using the proper tool – elections – to make their concerns heard. Will anyone listen?

Jason Stanley is the Jacob Urowsky Professor of Philosophy at Yale University. He is the author of Knowledge and Practical Interests, Language in Context, and Know How. His latest book is How Propaganda Works, recently released by Princeton University Press.

“Brazil’s young democracy is being subjected to a coup,” said Dilma Rousseff after the Senate on May 12 voted 55 to 22 to remove her as president and move forward with impeachment.

Is this really a coup, as Rousseff and her supporters believe? Coups usually entail the violent overthrow of a government or a trampling of constitutional rules and procedures. In Brazil, there has been no involvement by the military other than to keep the peace.

And the major players in this real-life Brazilian telenovela – Congress, the judiciary, the federal police and the Federal Accounting Office (TCU) – are all playing by the constitutional rules. This is testimony to strong institutions in Brazil and a victory for checks and balances.

Far from being a coup, the current tumult, I believe, offers a chance for Brazil, with the right leadership, to return to the policies initiated in the mid-1990s that put the country on a virtuous trajectory of rising growth and falling inequality. The middle class expanded dramatically and the political system became more transparent.

Such policies first and foremost conform to monetary and fiscal orthodoxy but also promote social inclusion through programs such as the one that pays mothers to keep their children in school.

Can Brazil’s new leader, Vice President Michel Temer, use this window of opportunity to restore economic growth and also reduce inequality under the mantle of fiscally sound social inclusion?

How we got here

Prior to the reelection of President Rousseff in October 2014, two decades of economic and political development were beginning to founder on the shoals of a decline in commodity prices and a corruption scandal involving Petrobras, the state-owned oil company.

With the country’s economy in decline and the election drawing nearer, the president submitted rather rosy-looking public accounts to the TCU – basically a federal budget watchdog similar to the U.S. General Accounting Office but with the power to approve or reject them. Rousseff’s accounts suggested the government’s finances, although deteriorating, were not far off track.

But in a historic ruling following her narrow election victory, the TCU unanimously rejected the accounts, asserting that Rousseff understated the public deficit in the year prior to the election.

It is plausible, as her critics have argued, that Rousseff would not have won reelection had the voters known the true fiscal state of Brazil.

Although the impeachment trial technically entails prosecution for violating the fiscal responsibility law, in the eyes of the public, more is at stake, including the mismanagement of the economy and the corruption scandal at Petrobras, where Rousseff was board chair prior to her election.

Markets remain optimistic

Where does Brazil go from here?

Again, playing by the rules, former Vice President Temer, who belongs to a different party than Rousseff, is now the interim president while the impeachment prosecution proceeds. If Rousseff is impeached or resigns (never, she claims), Temer’s position will become permanent, and he will serve out her term, which expires in 2018.

Impeachments (and certainly coups) generally send economies into a tailspin. Yet, this hasn’t happened in Brazil. As the impeachment gained steam this year, the Brazilian real (the national currency) actually appreciated, as did the stock market.

Since the beginning of the year, the real is up by 10 percent and the stock market by 23 percent. And even when the real was tanking in late 2015, foreign direct investment surged, a sign of confidence by outside investors in the underlying fundamentals of the economy despite the political turmoil.

It may also signal confidence that Temer will institute market-friendly reforms. It’s important to note that in Brazil presidents have much stronger agenda-setting powers than in the U.S.

Temer is not popular in Brazil, but he is known as a “dealmaker,” one who is capable of managing a coalition in a multiparty Congress.

This all sounds promising, but before looking forward it is important to understand the past.

From military rule to fiscally sound social inclusion

From 1964 until 1985, Brazil was ruled by a military regime.

The military imposed order in its early years and embarked on an ambitious top-down development plan that turned Brazil into a “miracle economy” in the 1970s. However, growth began to sputter by the end of the decade, and inflation soared.

As growth weakened and the opposition became more vocal, the military’s oppressive reaction failed to suppress a growing populism, forcing it to pave the way for a return to democracy.

This helped usher in a new belief: social inclusion, which meant everything for everyone. The constitution of 1988 is one of the most detailed in the world, especially in terms of human rights. The decision-making process codified these beliefs around social inclusion as every interest group got to hang its ornament on the “Christmas tree” constitution.

Unfortunately, this didn’t work so well for the economy. From 1986 through 1993, governments spent generously on wasteful pork barrel projects, financed by printing money, leading to hyperinflation in the thousands of percent. Social inclusion was great in principle but bad in practice.

Several stabilization plans aimed at reining in inflation dramatically failed, and Brazil’s first democratically elected president since military rule, Fernando Collor, resigned during an impeachment trial in 1992.

This marked a turning point for Brazil and its economy after Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a self-exiled socialist during the military regime, was appointed finance minister by Collor’s replacement.

Cardoso and his team swiftly tamed inflation and instilled confidence, especially among businesses. This helped him win reelection, following which he passed the cornerstone of fiscally sound social inclusion: the fiscal responsibility law, aimed at ensuring that state governments could no longer spend more than their budgets allowed.

At the same time, Cardoso never abandoned the concept of social inclusion. Rather he merged it with his orthodox fiscal and monetary policies, such as keeping inflation in check, reforming pensions and controlling the budget. This led to modest economic growth and a growing middle class.

Yet his party lost the 2002 election to the charismatic Lula da Silva, who campaigned on a platform of largesse for the lower class and workers in general. Fortunately, high commodity prices helped da Silva run successive fiscal surpluses during his two terms, even as he expanded programs for the poor started by Cardoso. In other words, he continued and solidified a policy of fiscally sound social inclusion.

It was on da Silva’s crest of popularity and economic growth that Rousseff took the helm in 2010. But she abandoned many of his “fiscally sound” policies by increasing government expenditures and subsidies as well as expanding the role of state-run companies like Petrobras and the Brazilian Development Bank. And as commodity prices plunged, the economy fell with them, eventually exposing the holes in the government’s finances.

The traits of a leader

So the question now is will (and can) Temer restore those socially inclusive yet fiscally sound policies that put Brazil on course to becoming a truly developed country?

To me, whether he can successfully navigate the ongoing bumps in the road and stay the course of reform or not depends on whether he has the necessary attributes of a leader to rise to the occasion.

In “Brazil in Transition,” my coauthors and I pose three questions to help us assess whether a leader such as Temer has what it takes: does he know what policies are needed to recover from the shock? Can he coordinate a coalition that includes economic and political actors as well as citizens to embrace those policies? And is he trusted and does he possess moral authority?

To this, I add two more: can he adapt to unforeseen bumps to stay the course? Does Temer (including his policy team) possess imagination to see solutions that were not on the table?

Temer has recognized the heart of Brazil’s dilemma: policies need to be fiscally sound. This means accepting some austerity, as Argentina recently did. On this score he wins points for naming Henrique Meirelles, a well-respected former head of the central bank and a Wall Street veteran, as finance minister.

Can Temer coordinate among Congress and other powerful players in Brazil, such as industry and unions, and convince them to play ball? Being known as “the dealmaker” means he should be able to “coordinate and adapt” as opportunities arise. Temer was also trained as a constitutional lawyer, which means he knows well both the law and rules of the game in Congress.

However, he lacks the moral authority of both Cardoso, who was a vocal critic of the military regime, and da Silva, who with a fourth-grade education rose to the presidency as a strident union leader. But leaders can build moral authority; they need not come to the job with it in hand. (Not everyone can be a Nelson Mandela.)

Finally, does Temer have the “imagination” to come up with extraordinary ideas capable of breaking through the gridlock and bringing about reform? In his first hours in office, he demonstrated imagination by cutting his cabinet by a third, to 22 from 31, and, controversially, he picked only white men. This move could backfire, but it at least shows he’s willing to take risks and is not afraid of some controversy.

So does this suggest he has the “right stuff” to seize the window of opportunity of a new government and return Brazil to its virtuous trajectory?

His early moves may please markets, but to satisfy Brazil’s diverse citizenry, he will need to demonstrate that he is not abandoning social inclusion. On this as well as his own fate in the ongoing corruption scandals: the jury is still out.

In Listening to a Continent Sing, Donald Kroodsma tells the story of a ten-week, ten-state bicycle adventure he shared with his son. The book features QR codes that link to audio of birdsong they recorded on their journey. Check out our new trailer for some beautiful illustrations from the book!

Germaine de Staël (1766–1817) is perhaps best known today as a novelist, literary critic, and outspoken and independent thinker. Yet she was also a prominent figure in politics during the French Revolution. In her new book, Germaine de Staël: A Political Portrait, Biancamaria Fontana sheds new light on this often overlooked aspect of Staël’s life and work, bringing to life her unique experience as a political actor in a world where women had no place. Recently, Fontana took the time to answer some questions about her book.

Though she is probably better known in France than in the English-speaking world, Germaine de Staël is already the subject of various biographies and literary studies. Why write another book about her?

BF: Staël’s reputation is indeed very high in her capacity as a novelist and literary critic; but her political activities and ideas are not so well known. Only her reputation as Napoleon’s vocal opponent has survived. But during the French Revolution, when she was in her early twenties, she was a very prominent political actor who tried to unite political factions and to promote the cause of modern representative government, though of course she could not sit in the National Assembly, except as a spectator; she was also barred from becoming a minister like some of her (male) political friends who owed their positions in government to her. As to her works on political theory, they are more original than it is generally assumed: she addressed novel issues such as the role of public opinion in modern society, the character of national cultures and the prospects of European unification.

She seems to have led a very glamorous life, frequenting castes and royal courts, associating with the high aristocracy, dining with monarchs…or is this just a modern fantasy?

BF: No doubt wealth was a very important factor in Staël’s life: her father, Jacques Necker, was a Swiss banker who became minister of the king of France; when she married at nineteen in 1786 she had one of the largest dowries in Europe, and, unusually, she remained in control of her own fortune even after her marriage. Her social position was also the source of much hostility: aristocrats despised her, as the daughter of a rich parvenu, while radical revolutionaries assumed she must necessarily be an agent of reaction. Although she did live in castles and palaces, she herself did not care much about high life; what mattered to her was being independent, and especially being able to associate with the people she regarded as politically and intellectually interesting, including some sovereigns old and new. One must not forget that hers was an age of extraordinary social mobility (think of Napoleon!), in which personal qualities proved often more important than rank and social status.

To what extent was her intellectual reputation conditioned by her gender? Can she be described as a feminist?

BF: The fact that she was a woman has certainly led even serious historians to assume that her political views were derivative and echoed those of the men close to her (while the reverse was often true). Similarly commentators tend to describe her as an over-active salon hostess and to regard her political canvassing as backstage intrigue. She was very conscious of the fact that being a woman made her more vulnerable to public attacks (indeed she was often the target of sexual insults and calumnies), and took great care to avoid any occasion for scandal. But she did not spend much time complaining about such limitations: she was very pragmatic and took them in stride, making the most of the opportunities offered to her. She was not a militant feminist like, say, Mary Wollstonecraft, but she gave an extraordinary demonstration of what a politically minded woman was capable of.

We tend to consider celebrity as an essentially contemporary phenomenon. Yet in the book you describe Staël as uneasy about her own celebrity. Was this really already an issue in the 18th century?

BF: The development and greater freedom of the press in the 18th century, and especially during the French Revolution, did promote the phenomenon of celebrity, as writers and artists, generals and politicians competed for public attention. Indeed some contemporary observers were very worried by what they saw as the replacement of true moral and intellectual distinction with ephemeral fame. Staël was especially concerned with the decline of aesthetic and moral standards, as she considered the quality of public discourse an essential precondition for the political development of modern societies. She was also embarrassed by the fact that her unusual situation made her famous, before she had the opportunity to “deserve” to be known by the wider public. All her life she tried very hard to merit the status she finally achieved, that of a major international intellectual figure.

What, if anything, can we learn from her views on politics?

BF: Staël is generally described as a “liberal” thinker, someone who supported the values of freedom, moderate government and the limitation of power against the authoritarianism of both monarchical and popular regimes. This of course is broadly speaking true; however what is really interesting about her views is not the fact that she defended a set of abstract values, but that she showed how difficult it was, in any real context, to put them into practice: how can you be a liberal when faced with political instability, international economic crisis, terrorism or military conquest? What I find especially prophetic about her writings is the fact that she saw popular opinion as the true source of the stability and legitimacy of any political system. The question she could not stop asking herself was: what does really give shape to collective mentalities and sentiments? Is it education, cultural or religious identities, or simply the ephemeral influence of fashionable views and ideologies?

This is probably a bit far fetched, but while preparing this book you must have spent some time trying to get inside her world; what would have been like, in your view, to be in her company, as a friend or social acquaintance?

BF: She was, by all accounts a fascinating conversationalist, a great flatterer, but also impossibly overbearing if you had anything to do with her at close range. Her energy, her relentless activity and appetite for company could be exhausting. However she was an extremely loyal friend, especially to women. She was very generous, did not take offence easily, and during the difficult years of the Revolution helped and supported the less fortunate of her acquaintances, including some who had never been especially nice to her. When Marie Antoinette was on trial, she took the risk of publishing a pamphlet in her defense, in spite of the fact that the queen had always treated her with disdain. Even in the writings of those contemporaries who disliked her, you cannot find a single episode in which she acted in a mean or resentful manner.

Biancamaria Fontana is professor of the history of political ideas at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. Her books include Montaigne’s Politics (Princeton), Benjamin Constant and the Post-Revolutionary Mind, and Rethinking the Politics of Commercial Society. Most recently she has written Germaine de Staël: A Political Portrait.

You never know what you might accidentally come across at 41 William Street. Recently we unearthed copies of a variety of our older catalogs, dating all the way back to 1914! These vintage covers were a great find, showcasing printing and marketing styles throughout the century and proving just how much has changed design-wise over the years at PUP. Spanning nearly the entire 20th century, the covers past and present were a true buried treasure at the press.

Take a look through the gallery below to see some of the best covers, featuring images from 1914 up to Spring 1998. Do you have a favorite?

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